Episode 2 D.O.I.

"There was something strange about hearing your own friends ask you why you weren’t performing at everyone else’s level."

Let's kick it off...What’s the last album you heard that made you want to play an instrument, What’s the name of the last playlist you made, and what’s the last concert you attended?

GM: I’ve been listening to a lot of Ruby Haunt recently. Their EP Crush is soothing. A lot of cool synth stuff going on there. Last playlist is just an album I saved called La Planete Sauvage. It’s a soundtrack to a french animated movie from 1973…it speaks to me. Last concert I believe was unknown mortal orchestra…It was decent, we don’t get many rolling through Hawaii. Mahaloz :)

So, what made you delete Instagram for good?

GM: I guess initially I deleted the app because it was a nuisance, and it was pretty redundant. Just scrolling through the feed you generally see the same post over and over again, a picture of someone or something with a caption totally unrelated to the picture. Like what does a post of your face have to do with your grandmother’s 63rd birthday…that kind of stuff. I don’t know…….it just got old. I guess the main thing that fed that nuisance was expectation. There was just this level of expectation within this digital community I was a part of and I didn’t really want to fit into that community. This level of expectation dictated the way that you acted in what you captioned your post and in the image itself. Not only that, but your expectation on how you should act to posts. I found myself pressing the little heart button on things that I didn’t necessarily agree with or aesthetically thought was disappointing to look at. I remember there were a couple times when I went through a lull in posting, because I was getting tired of it, and some acquaintances of mine and even my friends would ask me why I didn’t post in a while. I was a little bothered, actually a little offended when asked that. There was something strange about hearing your own friends ask you why you weren’t performing at everyone else’s level.

“It comes as a great shock to discover that Gary Cooper killing off the Indians, when you were rooting for Gary Cooper, that the Indians were you.”

- James Baldwin

It’s kind of a weird reality we live in now or I guess I should say realities. Recently I watched Raoul Peck’s documentary “I Am Not Your Negro” on the life of James Baldwin and it got me thinking about reality in general. Man…talk about a guy who really felt like he didn’t fit into a mold, but he said something that resonated with me. He said, “It comes as a great shock to discover that Gary Cooper killing off the Indians, when you were rooting for Gary Cooper, that the Indians were you.” Here’s James Baldwin a Black man growing up in this reality called 1960’s America, a place where you should be treated humanely because it’s the ideals of your country, but you soon question that very reality because you realize you’re not like everyone. Now I’m not saying that there’s a climate of extreme racism now but I feel like something similar is going on in this digital world we live in, as it pertains to Instagram. We’ve entered this weird reality now where if we don’t fit under this certain social construct you’re immediately ostracized. Ostracized socially, like if you don’t like or post the same way as the majority then there’s no point in talking to you in real life. How dumb is that? But that’s what I’m seeing today in my interactions with people. Anyways, I still love everyone regardless if they are on the mindless app : )

Have you found the results you were hoping for when you decided to delete?

GM: YES…I guess I’m somewhat more productive? I say that questioningly because regardless if I had the app or not I still can be unproductive but yeah I have been able to focus more on my own pursuits in music and creating visual content. Also, I feel a little more connected in my personal relations with people.

Do you use other social platforms?

GM: I’m a hypocrite….you just got to choose the lesser of two evils. I still have Facebook, primarily for reaching out to my family on the other side of the world and for work related stuff. Snapchat I’m rarely on but I use to dabble with some design stuff. The thought has occurred to get rid of both but for practicality sake I still use them.

"If you’re caught up in the masses' perception of what’s creatively ideal then you really don’t leave any room for the subconscious to do its thing."

How does Instagram cheapen the creative process of making and consuming art?

GM: I noticed that there was a lot of incentivizing on the app. So many people were posting stuff because they wanted to be featured or wanted free stuff that they would just create some content that was sub par. When you involve some sort of incentive, I think it jeopardizes the whole creative process…..in my opinion.

Art by Ozzie Wright

Can you explain more about how Instagram might jeopardize creativity?

GM: Being original is a little hard to achieve in the first place because there’s so much good creative content out there already but it’s more possible if you aren’t always exposed to everyone's work constantly. I’ve thought a lot about originality and what that entails. It usually entails involvement with your subconscious. If you’re caught up in the masses' perception of what’s creatively ideal then you really don’t leave any room for the subconscious to do its thing.